Have established some things and don't plan on dropping my name completely. We have briefly spoke about this, and agreed children will have his lastname. I don't care and think they should. I will 31 when we get married and worked hard to pay for college and really want to keep my name. My name is not common and I'm not to fond of his lastname. I love him but will hypenate.

eh...I'm still on the fence. I really don't want to go through the hassle of changing my name. I know that there are kits and such, but imochanging my name is not a requirement of marriage nor a testament to how much I love my FI. My FI gets a little upset when I say I'm not sure if I will change my name. I told him to give me a very good reason to change my name (I'm still waiting for it). I might hyphenate my name, but right now I don't know what I will do. I mean isn't it enough that I'm going to spend the rest of my life as his wife? Sheesh!

In Response to Re: Name Change Poll:
[QUOTE]eh...I'm still on the fence. I really don't want to go through the hassle of changing my name. I know that there are kits and such, but imochanging my name is not a requirement of marriage nor a testament to how much I love my FI. My FI gets a little upset when I say I'm not sure if I will change my name. I told him to give me a very good reason to change my name (I'm still waiting for it). I might hyphenate my name, but right now I don't know what I will do. I mean isn't it enough that I'm going to spend the rest of my life as his wife? Sheesh! sorry it's long.
Posted by Aguaviolet[/QUOTE]

My FI could honestly care less if I change my name or not. The only thing is that I don't want to deal with funny looks when we have kids and I have a different last name than they do...so when we have kids, I will hyphenate my last name and give them his last name. But until then, I am keeping my name as is.

Nope, I kept my name for both personal and professional reasons when I got married. My kids did ask questions when they were younger and I explained my reasons to them (including the fact that I am an only child and I wanted to hang on to my father's name, my feminist views, etc.). My husband would and still likes for me to change my name, but it has always been a non-negotiable topic with me. From the very beginning in our relationship, I told him that if changing my name to his was a dealbreaker for marriage, then he needed to find someone else. Despite my stance, he still married me and we have been married now for 14 years. What is in a name? You don't have to take on a man's name to show that you love him. But it makes you happy to take on your husband's name, go for it.

Do what works for you and what reflects your values. What works for me may not work for anybody else. We are all different, hence the reason why we handle situations differently.

Chocolate-I actually told fi so year, if we were not engaged about time I received my associate's the dropping my lastname was off limit. Once I started on this road of education, changing my name would set up confusion, so to avoid that. I will just hypenate.

I've decided to take on his last name. I have no personal attachment to my last name, it's just a name. When I was younger I vowed to never change my last name for feminist reasons, but now I don't care. I can still advocate for women's rights and issues while keeping my last name. I think the woman's liberation movement is all about choices, and this is my choice. My FI wouldn't care either way if I change my last name. I don't have a real profession, so I don't have to worry about that. I will probably hyphenate it for a while just so its not too confusing and then eventually drop my last name, but I think people will catch on pretty quickly. If we decide to have kids I want us to be one family unit. People will probably call me by the last name of our kids anyways, so to avoid the aggravation and confusion, I'll just change it. No big deal.

FI really wants me to change my name. However I have a son with whom I share my lastname with so, for that reason I'll be hyphenating. FI wants to adopt my son and change both of our names....This man won't stop! LOL

My plan is to hypenate but I would love to take my FI's last name. He has mentioned it as well. The thing is I have an Autistic son with my maiden name and it will be a struggle handling his business with a different last name , especially as he gets older. We both agreed that hypenating is the best option.

I'm with miss2 and VanesssA. I have a son and he has my last name. Right now he is the only Smith of the next generation (at least until my siblings get some kids . . NOT!) and my last name is important. I want him to continue the familyname. However, my FI is adopting my son for the sake of the kids and my profession (takes a lot of money to change my name on documents) I am hyphenating so people will see that the kids belong to both me and him. FI doesn't mind at all. He's just glad he's starting a nonracist family.